The children's immediate needs were taken care of. They were well fed and well housed, they attended school, and they even played volleyball, basketball, and their favorite game, ping-pong. In fact, they were scarely recognizable as the skeletal, scavenging waifs they had been. But Mills was still worried about them. Their future was very uncertain, especially because they were orphans.
"In China an orphan was automatically assumed to be a thief and a liar," he explained. With no family ties to establish their identity, and no family members to vouch for their character, orphans were often oucasts, barely surviving on the margins of society. Mills couldn't let that happen to his children.
As the months went by, Mills continued to worry about the children and their future. Eventually, he devised a plan: He would teach them, in the most practical terms, how to provide for themselves, and how to be independent and self-reliant. He would see to it that every child learned a trade. And because he had been squirreling away some of his UNRRA [United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration] funds against future needs, he had the resources in hand to establish a vocational training program at the home.
Mills himself had an unusual background for a missionary. His father was a metallurgist with the Canadian National Railways in Winnipeg, and he wanted -- indeed, expected -- his son to follow in his footsteps. Verent [Mills] was sent to St. John's Technical High School to study engineering diesel technology. The plan was that father and son would someday work together. Instead, two missionaries from South China came to speak at the Millses' church on four successive evenings in 1931. At the conclusion of their last talk, 19-year old Verent stepped forward to sign up as a missionary. When he left for China shortly thereafter, he was too young to be admitted to the Mission Board, was not ordained, and had never attended a seminary. What he did have, in addition to a wholehearted religious vocation, was a solid grounding in engineering and a talent for mechanics that, as it turned out, was to be invaluable in the years to come.
He was eminently qualified, for example, to go on a shopping expedition to Hong Kong in 1946, in search of machinery on which his children would be taught valuable mechanical skills. Within a week, he returned to Canton with four lathes, two drill presses, two shapers, and a milling machine for the boys, and with 12 industrial hand looms for the girls.
The metalworking machinery was installed in one classroom from which the desks had been removed. Holes had to be drilled in the floor and cement poured in order to fasten the heavy equipment in place. Ten to 11 boys could work in the shop at one time. At first, Mills taught the boys himself; later he hired an experienced machinist. When the boys-in-training were not working in the shop, they would be cutting and filing metal and threading bolts. As part of their training, the boys restored a progression of old trucks Mills had managed to acquire, fabricating all the needed parts themselves. The boys started their training at age 14; eventually every boy in the home had been taught machinery operation and repair, and many acquired a command of basic mechanics. All looked forward to the course. "It was considered a privilege to participate," says Dr. Mills.
Meanwhile, in a nearby classroom, 12 girls would be weaving cotton fabric on their looms, under the instruction of a man who had worked for many years in a textile mill. The girls made all the towels and underwear for the school. But, most important, they too were learning to be self-supporting.